To Forget I Ever Walked Tall
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day six hundred and seven: Quinn may not have gotten to write her song with Rachel, but she did fine on her own.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number two...<strong>_

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><p><strong>"To Forget I Ever Walked Tall"<br>Quinn**

**A/N: See at the end of this update for a message! **

The sound of Rachel's steps receded… as did her sobs… and then finally the door opened, shut. She let out a breath, let the echoing silence of the empty auditorium swallow her whole. She was all on her own now, sitting at the piano, and maybe for that she reached in her pocket, pulled out the folded paper.

Going into that auditorium, she knew what was going to happen and what wasn't. At some point she really did hope Rachel would understand what it was she had tried to do for her. Either way, she knew they wouldn't get to work on song writing together, she wouldn't have expected to show this to her…

She wouldn't exactly call herself a songwriter; it would just seem like she was trying to be something she knew she wasn't, and the outcome would only be exactly that. But then the way she saw it, the whole process was about putting some kind of feeling into words, and if there was one thing she had, it was a good long list of complicated and messy feelings in her head. So as she'd found herself sitting on the bus that morning, with her car in the shop, she had decided 'why not.' She'd pulled out a notebook and pen, and she'd given herself over to at least trying. When she'd stopped, she had ripped the sheet from the notebook, folded it, and slipped it in her pocket.

It was also around that time that she'd figured out they wouldn't be getting around to this together, that there was something much more important than any song that they had to write. She knew what Rachel had to hear, whether Rachel wanted to hear it or not. Hopefully it would light a fire under her and get her to realize some things for herself.

Either way, after this she had kind of forgotten about the folded up paper in her pocket, let it go into the back of her mind. Now that she was alone with the piano though, it had gotten her thinking again about all of it. She could play, to some degree… She had taken lessons when she was younger, as her mother had suggested. In the end, it hadn't worked out; she didn't care for the lessons, even if she was learning. At the very least, it had awakened a love for music which had gone a long way in getting her where she was now, with Glee Club.

She'd been twirling that piece of paper between her fingers, staring at it… She had no idea what she would find on there. It was one thing to write it, but what would it be to read it back, or even more, to try and sing it? She wouldn't have had the guts to show it, to Rachel or anyone else, to have them scrutinize it, try to take it apart. She was sure it could use the editing; she didn't doubt that one bit. But these were her words, this was her attempt to express… something, and she hadn't done it for them…

She unfolded the paper, flattened out the creases before placing it in front of herself on the piano. She stared at the words. She could see how shaky the writing was, and she knew some of it was the fact that she was on a moving bus, but she had long been a pro at keeping a steady hand in the shakiest of situations. In this case though, she knew it was uncertainty which threw off her hand. It was the issue of saying what she had to say, of trying to make it an even half decent song… and whether or not her mind was considering it that way, her hand had been working with a quake of apprehension.

The truth was she kind of didn't want to 'perfect' it… like that was anything she'd want to do. In this case, she kind of saw it like she had to take it, scrapes and all. She had wanted to tease out the emotions that kept to the dark, to the corners, and she could see them there, dragging their toes into the light. She knew there was still a whole array of things she hadn't even touched on yet, but even just getting at a few points, it felt good… relief, exhale…

She looked around, to all those empty seats, to the pit overhead, where she had spied on the Glee Club's "Don't Stop Believing" with Coach Sylvester and Santana, then around the stage and the sides of it. She turned back to the sheet sitting in front of herself, looked at the keys. Even pushed to the back of her mind all day, it had stayed enough to produce some kind of melody with a few holes along the way.

She supposed she might as well go for it… before the band started appearing out of nowhere, the way it would. She resettled her posture on the bench, feeling instantly like she was back in her lessons. She started playing a few notes, first to get a feel of it, to re-acclimate herself, then to try and find the ghost melody that had been going through her mind all day. When she did find it, she paused, then started again, taking her time with settling into the notes until she felt ready, as ready as she could be, to give it a try. She didn't think about anyone else, or anything else, just let it fall away like tethers that kept her from releasing her voice from her throat without fear anyone should actually hear her.

_[Q] "There were days we used to know  
><em>_We'd be exactly who we wanted to be  
><em>_We believed it when they said  
><em>_The future is ours to make  
><em>_How did it get to this?_

_These are the days we live  
><em>_We are exactly who they want us to be  
><em>_We believe it when they say  
><em>_The present is ours to create  
><em>_So why can't I?_

_I made my mask, I wear it well  
><em>_But I'm a stranger inside myself  
><em>_Chose the lie without regret  
><em>_And would you believe if I said  
><em>_I'd give it all back, just for one day  
><em>_To forget I ever walked tall  
><em>_Just to be small  
><em>_To be Daddy's girl all over again_

_There will be days we'll remember  
><em>_We weren't exactly who we should be  
><em>_We won't believe it when they'll say  
><em>_The past is ours to forget  
><em>_What will you say?_

_We can't go back, it's already done  
><em>_But the road is long, so how do we go on?_

_I made my mask, I wear it well  
><em>_But I'm a stranger inside myself  
><em>_Chose the lie without regret  
><em>_And would you believe if I said  
><em>_I'd give it all back, just for one day  
><em>_To forget I ever walked tall  
><em>_Just to be small  
><em>_To be Daddy's girl all over again_

_I'd give it all back, just for one day  
><em>_To forget I ever walked tall  
><em>_Just to be small  
><em>_To be Daddy's girl all over again_

_Some days, I just don't know how  
><em>_To be myself, to just pretend  
><em>_Everyone thinks they know who I am  
><em>_Everyone thinks they know who we are  
><em>_But what they can't even say is  
><em>_The one they know the least  
><em>_Stares out of their mirror every morning_

_I made my mask, I wear it well  
><em>_But I'm a stranger inside myself  
><em>_Chose the lie without regret  
><em>_And would you believe if I said  
><em>_I'd give it all back, just for one day  
><em>_To forget I ever walked tall  
><em>_Just to be small  
><em>_To be Daddy's girl all over again_

_I made my mask, I wear it well  
><em>_But I'm a stranger inside myself  
><em>_Chose the lie without regret  
><em>_And would you believe if I said  
><em>_I'd give it all back, just for one day  
><em>_To forget I ever walked tall  
><em>_Just to be small  
><em>_To be Daddy's girl all over again_

_We can't go back, it's already done  
><em>_But the road is long, so how do we go on?"_

She had found her way into the rhythm of it before long, even if she had to account for the odd verse or two where she wasn't sure, but she had known this going into it, had preferred it that way. Now that she had done it, she did feel herself breathing with just a little less pressing down on her chest.

She knew there were things she wanted, things she missed, couldn't get back, didn't want to get back, really wanted… And maybe it would sort itself out, maybe it wouldn't. There was so much she hadn't told, to anyone, and some of that was due to personal pride, no doubt, but the rest… Something had broken inside her, been that way for a while now, and she knew it; she could feel it, tearing her up inside, causing more damage. But that wasn't the kind of thing even an exercise in song writing could mend; she wasn't sure what could…

As for that day, she'd said her piece… or sung it, even. She folded that paper back up, slipped it in her pocket once again, and she left the auditorium, back into the world, waiting for the lights to come back on.

THE END

_[PS: My first - and probably last - foray into song writing, be kind ;)  
>(also this isn't the message, so again see below ;))]<em>

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

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><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****

******UPDATE!  
><strong>****_So the other day I thought 'oh, of course, I'll use those C2 things to make listings for all the different series, awesome!'  
>And then I went to try and start that today only to realize that... I can only create one... So now there is one series currently<br>archived via C2, and that's of course the Sunshine Girls (you can find the link in my profile in the 'communities' tab, though as  
>of yet the stories won't seem to show up, guess it takes a while). Now I'm back to the drawing board on how to get get listings<br>for the OTHER series, but at least there's one that's taken care of now! :) _


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